Haunting
by WaveMasterYami
Summary: He was always the one doing the chasing, even when he didn't want to.  This time she was the one doing the running.  She did nothing, but is that really so unforgivable?  The past is past.  Maybe this time she can save him.  AU-ish.  One-shot.


_Just some spur of the moment type thing I came up with. It's a little AUish, featuring a dark, semi-Kyuubified Naruto confronting Hinata, who's probably a little not all there mentally, considering she's still devoted to him even after everything he's done. What has he done, you ask? I'll leave that up to you to decide._ ;D

_It's really just a lot of dialogue, and not really meant to be taken too seriously. Naruto's probably super OOC, but what fic featuring dark!Kyuubified!Naruto ever actually keeps him in character? Same for Hinata, but I'm hoping she's at least semi-IC. Also, the content is probably pretty purple prose-y, but it's so much damn fun to write._

**Disclaimer:** _I do not own Kishimoto's Naruto series, and gain no profit in writing this. Unless you consider finding delight in anyone who reads this as profiting._

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><p>"My little coward," his voice was deeper than she remembered. The hand that gently caressed her hair was gentle, belying the harsh calluses that had come from years of working with blades. Yet, in spite of his soft croon, his words were full of malice. Like daggers, they pierced her heart, hurting her worse than anyone ever could.<p>

It didn't lessen her love for him.

She stared up at him, large pearly eyes glistening. His own gaze, reflecting a clear, cold sky, never flicked away. His smile was wide and beaming, falsehood lying in every etch of his face. She hated that smile. She preferred him expressionless if he couldn't let himself show genuine emotion to her.

"After so long, I've found you. You run away so often. Don't you ever get tired of running?" His hand slowly ran through her dark tresses, his touch lingering in all the right and wrong ways. "I know I'm tired." His grip suddenly tightened, and her chest heaved with a silent gasp.

His eyes, the eyes she had loved all her life, were almost unrecognizable now, running a deep red that chilled her. "You disgust me. I don't know why I've chased you. Even when I thought you were-_knew_ you were dead…I still searched for you. I would see you out of the corner of my eye, just for a second, but as soon as I would look, you'd be gone." His false smile began to fade.

"You haunt me, Hinata. Like a ghost. But you've always been like that, haven't you? Hiding in the hopes that no one will see you, but always yearning for someone to finally look at you, _speak_ to you, raise you up high enough that you can raise your head…so you watch them from afar, always _just_ out of sight. It's pathetic."

He paused, eyes slowly drinking in the sight of her face. "You were dead. It was almost a relief. Yet, here you are, still haunting me."

His grip loosened, but she couldn't find the air to speak. It was as though his words held her suspended. Cruel though they were, his voice was hypnotizing, and his gaze trapped her in how they focused solely on her. Just her. No one else. She had once dreamed of a moment like this. Somehow, she could find some happiness in that this was reality.

"You're a coward," he informed her calmly, as though she hadn't already known. "You could have stopped this. _You could have stopped this._ Why didn't you? It would have been so easy to reach out, to say something, but you didn't."

Happiness was always so fleeting.

She mutely shook her head, a noise of protest rising from her throat. No. _No._

He simply nodded patiently. "Yes, Hinata. Yes."

"I tried," she whispered, imploring. He had to understand. _He had to._

Now his smile was completely gone. She had thought this would be better, but it wasn't. Not really. He was almost frightening in his intensity, whisker marks dark against his cheeks.

"You didn't," he hissed, the same hand that had slipped through her locks so tenderly now sliding down to grasp the side of her face, his nails slowly digging into her flesh. She hardly felt it.

"I did," she quietly insisted. "I did. I did! I _did!_ I tried so many times!"

He simply stared at her. When next he spoke, his voice was quiet, but so dark that it left her trembling. **"You didn't try hard enough."**

How could he say that? She had loved him unselfishly for so long. She had even let him go. She had let him live free, without a low, pathetic creature like herself clinging to him. She was weak, a hindrance, _dependent_. How could anyone, much less him, stand her presence? She had known this all along, but it had taken longer to finally relinquish what little hold she had over him. He deserved so much better.

_How could he say that?_

"D-Don't say that," she gasped out, feeling her eyes burn. His face blurred, but the intensity of his gaze, his entire being, never lessened. "I tried. So m-many times. So _hard._"

"You didn't," he interrupted, voice thick with mounting ire. "You never did. You never reached out, never tried to change anything-"

"You n-never looked at me!" she tried to scream, but it only came out in a whisper. "I tried t-to get your attention in th-the only ways I knew h-how, but you never _saw_ me, y-you-"

"You did nothing! You saw how hard things were, but still you didn't even so much as lift your pinky fi-"

"You don't know that!" she had finally gathered the strength to wail. "How can you know anything _when you never looked at me!_"

Her outburst stopped him cold, and he looked at her strangely. She took this moment to wrench away from him, and let everything out in a rush.

"I idolized you! You were e-everything I wanted to be! When I looked at you, I f-felt - I felt like maybe I - I…I could be something more! But you were s-so high a-above me, I could nev-never-" she choked, old feelings that she had thought were long since buried rising up again. She struggled for a moment over what to say next, words scrambling to her tongue for fear that he would interrupt her again before she could get them all out.

However, he remained silent, waiting, expression unreadable.

"I tried s-so many times. For a lo-long time, I thought I c-could be the one you would want. I thought I could get st-str-strong enough so that you - you would just look at me, even o-once, and _see me._ Then I r-realized you - you deserved better, because I could n-never _be_ better. I stopped - stopped trying. I ran."

Tears spilled down her cheeks, and she tried to smile, but failed. "I m-may be a c-co-coward, but I t-tried. I tried harder th-than you'll e-ever kn-know."

For a moment, she thought he may try to kill her, continuing to argue that she was wrong until the very end. Instead, he reached out to cup her cheek again. She let him, letting herself lean into his touch. She had never known this touch before now, but she had missed him. Even after everything, she had missed him so much that it had left a physical ache.

"I wish you had tried harder," his voice cracked, the first chink in his armor revealing itself to her. In that second, though her vision was still blurred with her tears, she could see the lonely, boisterous boy she had fallen in love with so long ago.

She rested her hand over his own, still trying to smile, if only for his sake. "So do I."

He embraced her then, and it was more wonderful than she could have imagined. She returned it, greedily clinging to him, and hoping that he would never let go. He buried his face into the crook of her neck, and though she felt nothing dampen the collar of her kimono, she knew that, in some way, he was crying, too.

"You were never…what I wanted," he murmured into her hair. Something inside froze at his words, icy fingers gripping her chest. "You were…you _are_...what I need." Just like that, every bit of her melted.

Her hands curled even tighter around the fabric of his coat.

"Do...you think I can - can try again?"

"I hope so."

She collapsed fully against him, letting him bear her weight. So much had changed, but despite everything he had said and done, she would continue loving him. That would remain the one thing that would never change.

"I think I will."

"...I'd like that."


End file.
